Proposition
Set the intention to be open and available to fall into love with any manifestation of the Earth — to kneel with Rumi 62 times during a turn around the Sun. Attend the gatherings (CLICK HERE) or retreats (CLICK HERE)
Introduction
Meister Eckhart, the 14th-century Christian mystic, suggests we should fall in love at least three times a day. This has resonated deeply with me as a way to practice living fully into the joyous gorgeousness of the Earth we inhabit.
As a way to practice this together, the invitation is to intentionally make space for falling in love on a regular basis and to connect monthly to share what is emerging. For the coming year, the challenge is to do this five times a month, for a total of 62 times. (Why 62 times? Read More…)
What do we mean by falling in love?
Falling in love is the experience of being present, paying attention and giving ourselves over to something or someone: an experience of abandonment and dramatic permeability where we allow ourselves to be transformed by something outside of ourselves.
We are available for something new and fresh to emerge; noticing what wasn’t noticed before, we experience joy, beauty, delight, possibility and compassion.
In our culture, the descriptor “falling in love” is primarily reserved for romantic sexual relationships.
This is way too small a playground for this dynamic energizing transformative experience, this modality of being awake, appreciative, of feeling buoyant, delighted, attracted and allured by indefinable potential.
Falling in love changes us, and by falling into love we are active contributors to generativity and the emergence of life beyond ourselves.
What does it look like to fall in love with the Earth?
Mary Oliver has been a mentor for many of us in this regard and says it so well!
When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
(What does Falling in Love with the Earth have to do with the ecological crisis? Read More…)
Let the beauty we love be what we do
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground
Rumi